According to Dr Warren, the age of first menstruation is determined by a number of factors:
“It occurs much earlier in warm than cold climates. It is hastened by high living; by the whirl and bustle and excitement of city life; by reading novels which are full of love incidents; by attending balls, theatres and parties; and by mingling much in the society of gentlemen.”
Warren also warns against the practice of intentionally suppressing or delaying or the monthly cycle. Some ladies do this to continue their social activities, he maintains, but it can be deadly:
“Girls sometimes in their utter thoughtlessness or ignorance dip their feet in cold water, when their courses are upon them, and bring on a suppression of a most dangerous character. The most lovely and innocent girls have done this for the purpose of attending a party; and in some instances the stoppage induced has ended in death within a few hours.”
Source: Ira Warren, The Household Physician; for the Use of Families, Planters, Seamen and Travellers, 1898 edition. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.
1799: Elizabeth Drinker has her first bath for 28 years
Henry Drinker was fond of two things: bathing and keeping up appearances. In June 1798, he followed the example of other well-to-do Philadelphians and had a bathhouse erected in his backyard. This outbuilding cost him almost five pounds, a large sum for the time. It featured a wooden floor, a deep tin bath and a new-fangled shower head, powered by a hand pump.
The new addition proved popular with the Drinker household as Henry, his children and the family’s servants all took to bathing regularly. Elizabeth Drinker, however, was not so keen. She did not use the bath until July 1st 1799, more than 12 months later, writing that:
“I bore it better than I expected, not having been wet all over at once for 28 years past.”
The recollection of her last bath was accurate: it can be traced by to June 30th 1771, when the family was visiting Trenton, New Jersey:
“[Henry] went into the bath this morning… Self went this afternoon into the bath, I found the shock much greater than expected.”
Elizabeth visited the Trenton bathhouse again two days later but “had not courage to go in”. While Mrs Drinker did not like taking baths, she was not averse to forcing them on her servants. In October 1794 she reported that the family’s slave, “black Scipio”, had acquired lice. She ordered that Scipio be:
“…stripped and washed from stem to stem, in a tub of warm soap suds, his head well lathered and (when rinsed clean) a quantity of spirits poured over it. [We] then dressed him in girl’s clothes until his own could be scalded.”
Elizabeth did eventually become more comfortable with using the bathhouse. In August 1806 she reported taking a bath – after which the entire household followed her, all using the same water:
“I went into a warm bath this afternoon, H.D. [Henry] after me because he was going out, Lydia and Patience [the Drinkers’ maids] went into the same bath after him, and John [Henry’s manservant] after them. If so many bodies were cleansed, I think the water must have been foul enough.”
Source: Diary of Elizabeth Drinker, June 30th 1771; July 1st 1771; October 2nd 1794; July 1st 1799; August 6th 1806. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.
1529: Antonius de Arena’s rules for dancing
Arena, who was a romantic at heart and something of a ladies’ man, did not enjoy military life – he much preferred writing and teaching. Arena wrote several texts on matters of law, as well as manuals on conduct and etiquette.
In 1529, Arena penned The Rules of Dancing, a quite thorough account of of several examples of basse danse, the slow-moving court dances popular with the French nobility. He urged his readers, particularly young men, to take their dancing seriously, for “to dance badly is a great disgrace”. The young person who cannot dance well, he writes, is likely to fall victim to “proud ladies and damsels who gossip away like magpies”. In contrast, the man who can dance well will “kiss many charming ladies and a thousand girls”.
Arena goes on to offer advice on music, movement and choreography – as well as proper deportment while dancing:
“Wear the most elegant clothes when you are dancing and are all set for love… the slovenly dressed man will be ridiculed…”
“Do not have a dripping nose and do not dribble at the mouth. No woman desires a man with rabies…”
“Do not scratch your head in search of lice…”
“When you are dancing do not keep your mouth open, since the flies… could easily fly into your gaping mouth and choke you…”
“Do not eat either leeks or onions because they leave an unpleasant odour in the mouth…”
“Always maintain a smiling aspect when dancing and, I pray you, a pleasant friendly expression. Some people look as if they are weeping and as if they want to shit hard turds…”
Source: Antonius de Arena, The Rules of Dancing, 1529. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.
1671: John Bold passes water in a Wigan well
Bold was also accused of swearing ten times at the Mayor of Wigan. He appeared again in 1671, after four witnesses testified that:
“John Bold, gentleman, did in a very rude, foul and beastly manner abuse the stone well in the Wallgate by pissing in the same, to the great loss and detriment of the neighbourhood…”
Source: Leet Records, Wigan, rolls 32-34 (1669-72). Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.
1859: A native delicacy – acorns pickled in human urine
Here, Kane reluctantly describes a local delicacy known to other white settlers as “Chinook olives” – or acorns pickled in human urine:
“About a bushel of acorns are placed in a hole dug for the purpose, close to the entrance of the lodge or hut, and covered with a thin layer of grass [and] about half a foot of earth. Every member of the family for the next five or six months regards this hole as the special place of deposit for urine, which on no occasion is to be diverted from [this] legitimate receptacle. Even should a member of the family be sick and unable to reach it for this purpose, the fluid is collected and carried thither.”
According to other sources, these “Chinook olives” were rendered black by the pickling process, after which they were cooked in the ashes of a campfire. Those brave enough to sample them claimed they were soft with a chewy centre and possessed a pungent salty taste but a foul smell.
Source: Paul Kane, The Wanderings of an Artist among the Indians of North America, 1859; The Canadian Journal, 1857. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.
1544: Thomas Phaer’s remedies for poor bladder control
In this extract, Phaer offers advice on how to deal with bed-wetting and incontinence:
“Old men and children are often times annoyed when their urine issueth out, either in their sleep or waking against their will, having no power to restraint it when it cometh. [To mitigate this] they must avoid all fat meats till the virtue of retention be restored again, and to use these powders in their meats and drinks: Take the windpipe of a cock and pluck it, then burn it to powder and use it twice or thrice a day. The stones [testicles] of a hedgehog, powdered, is of the same virtue. [So is] the claws of a goat, made into powder, drunk or eaten in pottage.”
Source: Thomas Phaer, The Boke of Chlydren (1544). Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.
1780: Mozart trolls his sister with fake diary entries
“About shitting my humble self, an arse, a break, again an arse and finally a nose, in the church, staying at home due to the whistle in the arse, whistle not a bad tune for me in my arse. In the afternoon Katherine stopped by and also Mr Fox-tail, whom I afterwards licked in the arse. O, delicious arse!”
This was not the first time Mozart had written in his sister’s diary without her permission. In May 1775 Maria Anna mentioned attending a concert in the city hall, featuring a female singer. Beneath her entry, Wolfgang scrawled:
“Terrible arse!”
Source: Diary of Maria Anna Mozart, August 19th 1780; May 29th 1775. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.
1814: Tibetan nobles clamour for Dalai droppings
In 1814, Pinkerton published a volume summarising his “most interesting” voyages and travels in various parts of the world. One of these chapters described the people of Tibet and their devotion to its political and spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama:
“..The grandees [nobles] of the kingdom are very anxious to procure the excrements of this divinity, which they usually wear about their necks as relics… The Lamas make a great advantage [by] helping the grandees to some of his excrements or urine… for by wearing the first about their necks, and mixing the latter with their victuals, they imagine themselves to be secure against all bodily infirmities.”
Pinkerton also claimed that Mongol warriors to the north:
“..wear his pulverised excrements in little bags about their necks as precious relics, capable of preserving them from all misfortunes and curing them of all sorts of distempers.”
Source: John Pinkerton, A General Collection of the Best and Most Interesting Voyages and Travels, London, 1814. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.
1511: Belgians amuse themselves with pornographic snowmen
Those able to stay warm made the most of things by engaging in a spontaneous snowman competition. All across Brussels, life-sized snowmen began to appear in parks, on street corners and outside private homes. One contemporary report suggests at least 50 clusters of snow figures could be observed in various places around the city.
By all accounts, most of these snowmen were cleverly sculpted and quite realistic. Some may even have been created by prominent artists. Among the figures represented in snow were Jesus Christ, Adam and Eve and other Biblical figures, Roman deities, Saint George and the dragon, unicorns and several signs of the Zodiac.
In the city’s working-class areas, however, the majority of the snow figures were pornographic or scatological. Near the city fountain, a snow couple fornicated while another snow figure watched with a visible erection. A number of snow women, ranging from nuns to prostitutes, appeared in various states of undress. Near the city market, a snow boy urinated into the mouth of another. A snow cow could be seen, halfway through defecation, while a snow drunk lay amongst his own snowy excrement.
The poet Jan Smeken, who penned the best-known account of the Belgian snow figures, described one scene of implied bestiality:
“In the Rosendal, a wonder was to be seen: a huge plump woman, completely naked, her buttocks like a barrel and her breasts finely formed. A dog was ensconced between her legs, her pudenda covered by a rose…”
The snowmen of Brussels lasted for about six weeks, until the return of warmer weather in mid-February.
Source: Jan Smeken, The Pure Wonder of Ice and Snow, 1511. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.
1559: Fainting Belgian brought round with smoking horse dung
“Those are made to empty jakes [toilets] and make clean sinks… these men reject all sweet smells as offensive unto them.”
Lemnius also wrote that these people, when overcome by sweet smells, could be brought back into a state of sensibility by waving contrasting smells – such as bitumen or burnt goat’s hair – under their noses:
“A certain countryman at Antwerp was an example of this, who when he came into a shop of sweet smells [a perfumery] he began to faint, but one presently clapped some fresh smoking warm horse dung to his nose, and fetched [roused] him again.”
The Scottish writer Tobias Smollett repeated the principle in 1769 when he wrote that:
“A citizen of Edinburgh stops his nose when he passes by the shop of a perfumer.”
Source: Levinus Lemnius, The Secret Miracles of Nature, Book II, 1559; Tobias Smollett, The History and Adventures of an Atom, 1769. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.